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Our aircraft forced its way through successive sheets of sleet as it landed into its destination. A sinking feeling filled me during the trip, growing stronger as I shuffled through the terminal. I was unhappy about coming back to the place where I had grown up, after living on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I went out to get a haircut. My thoughts was far away, back across an sea, when I heard something hit the sidewalk. I glanced down to see a bird on its wings, spatchcocked, and twitching.

The impact occurred just as children were streaming out from the local primary school and so within minutes a group of youngsters had gathered, surrounded by their mothers and fathers. This group of confused faces looked down at the bird, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an ambulance?” I removed my coat, crouched down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “No problem, dear, the kind man will help her!” said one mum with a sense of relief. I had become the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to aid the bird (the name I gave my avian patient) would guide me to a web of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I found a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those moments of common perplexity marked my desperate search for what to do from there. I called friends for suggestions and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to become a member.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group operates on an decentralized model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is published, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an scan, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will step forward to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by kindness.

Belinda was quickly assessed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a course of careful physio. We never found out exactly what caused her to fall from the sky. I resumed the role of bird taxi once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the attention she deserved.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my city. I am skeptical any of the places I had called home while away could claim anything even close. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to rescue it and take it to safety.

The individual has since passed away – one of four friends to die in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I realised that this had been a big part of what had made the return so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as simple, diseased or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the parking lot and we’ll put it down.”

That? Not her. Although not expected to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often elicited by her favourite snack, vegetables, feels like a lesson in adaptability and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for showing me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.